DRR Solid Ground
by Mariel3
Summary: Doggett remembers.... DRR


TITLE: Solid Ground

AUTHOR: Mariel

CATEGORY: DRR

RATING: PG

SUMMARY: Doggett remembers when his life was cast adrift...and realises he's finally found solid ground.

DISCLAIMER: Everyone knows I don't own the characters, just the story. All hail to the powers that be, and thank you for your creations.

Solid Ground

Chapter 1

It's possible to feel pain so deep it guts your soul and leaves you floundering in its wake.

I felt its approach as I left my car and a solemn-faced policeman lifted a heavy arm to point where I was to go.

I felt icy cold rivulets of it slide down my spine when I recognised the group of NYPD and crime scene investigators waiting. Hunched against November drizzle on a small knoll, they weren't aware of my approach, concentrating instead on what lay at their feet. Only the woman I knew as FBI Agent Monica Reyes sensed my arrival and looked up. She turned and walked towards me as I made my way up the incline. Her dark eyes held mine, telling me a dark truth I'd been hoping against.

I felt the wave's surge, and that endless, breathless wait before realisation hit. Then pain crashed over me, into me, washing me away.

They had found Luke.

I was too late.

When we reached each other, her hand grasped my arm, stopping my forward movement. Still holding my eyes with hers, she waited a moment, then dropped her hand. "I'm sorry," she murmured. My fear confirmed, we walked together toward the knot of black-coated people.

When I reached them, they dispersed like a flock of crows disturbed from their feeding, settling into small clutches a safe distance away.

Monica remained with me.

Ignoring the wet autumn ground, I dropped to my knees beside the body of my son.

Inhaling deeply, I reached down to touch fair hair darkened by rain, thinking how long it had been since I had touched him last. I remember closing my eyes, and thinking he was too damned young. He'd only just learned to ride a two-wheeler, for Chrissake. He hadn't had a paper route, or a part in the school play, or hit his first home run in a Little League game.

Drowning in my new reality, I fought a father's urge to gather him into my arms. Police training holding true, I stood up before the crime scene was contaminated further. Looking down, eyes blurred by tears, I watched his pale, cold body transform into a scorched, burned husk of sooty flesh.

My heart stopped.

_Not my son._

I stared, transfixed._ Blackened skin peeled away from cooked flesh, seared lips stretched, showing small teeth yellowed by smoke... _

I blinked.

There was nothing but ash.

Too startled to speak, I inhaled sharply, blinking again. Once more, Luke lay pale against damp earth.

My heart throbbed back to life. One beat. Two. Raising my head, I looked at Monica. Raven hair wet and wind-tossed, she stood with her shoulders hunched against the cold grey sky. Without asking, I knew she had seen what I had.

A cold wash of fear coursed through me, mingling with my pain. I remember a feeling of disorientation, of horror...followed finally by rational thought. It had been a trick of the mind, nothing real; my imagination. Whatever, it made no difference, then. I was bereaved, mindless... I turned back to my son.

_My son...._

The worst had been done, there was nothing left.

Monica touched my arm.

"Detective Doggett?"

I didn't move, didn't respond. If I could stay rooted in that one moment perhaps it would go no further, there would be no need to tell his mother, no need to face the pain of tomorrow's reality.

Life without Luke.

_Daddy! Daddy! Look at me!_

I shuddered.

Ignoring my lack of response, she persisted gently, "The ambulance has arrived."

"Ambulance?"

Without thinking, I'd repeated the word aloud. It felt strange on my tongue. It made no sense: there was no hope for life here, no need to hurry while medics worked frantically over his small body, insisting that he live...

Monica shifted slightly. Moving to stand between me and whoever approached, I heard her ask for a moment more. There was the beginning of a protest, but she overruled it and I received my moment.

_Please, Daddy! Please!_

Had he cried out for me?

"John."

She signalled with a touch and a gesture that it was time to go. I remember turning, my movements stiff and painful. The day and its death and my failure had settled into my bones.

***

Time passed. There was a moment of shared pain with my wife, then silence wrapped us in our own solitudes of grief. We were too sore to soothe one another, too wounded to help each other heal. Lost in our own oceans of loss, we drifted apart still further.

_Daddy, where were you?_

I went back to work at the NYPD the day after Luke's funeral. Monica Reyes looked up and nodded as I passed her desk. Her presence was no surprise: she'd been brought in from the FBI to help in the investigation of the disappearance of several young boys, my son being only one of them. The investigation continued, in spite of my loss.

Frowning, I retraced my steps and stopped in front of where she sat, her desk piled with the files and folders of our trade.

"D'you have it?"

She didn't ask what. Picking up a file that looked like any other, she handed it to me.

I took it and went to my desk. Sound receded as I began to read the dry, colourless facts of my son's untimely demise.

_Daddy! What is it? Can I see?_

Bile rose in my throat. He'd been too damned young.

Chapter 2

The weeks that followed were filled with promising leads and dead ends, vats of coffee and miles of cigarettes. To my surprise, Agent Reyes asked for an extension of her stay in order to follow the few cooling leads that had come our way. To my greater surprise, she got it.

I didn't mind. Though she had a reputation for having strange ideas about paranormal stuff, I figured that made sense, given her specialty of cults, satanism, and ritual killings. She never mentioned any of it when I was around. Fact was, we didn't talk unless it directly involved the cases we were working on. Besides - I was drowning, and a drowning man doesn't have much breath to waste on talking.

We certainly never spoke about what I'd imagined on the hill.

Flesh turned to ash.

_Daddy, Daddy, where are you?_

It wasn't long after she returned to her New York field office that I realised my heart just wasn't in my work anymore.

Things continued to slide downhill.

My wife left me, our home, and our memories, four months after we buried Luke.

I guess the seeds of our breakup had been sown a long time before, but I'll never know if they'd have taken root, or withered and died in the joy of our parenthood. In the fertile pain of our loss, however, our dissatisfaction with each other grew and flourished. When Barbara said she was going to visit her mother for a while, I knew - we both did - that she wouldn't be comin' back.

The house didn't feel any emptier with her gone. If anything, I felt relief: one less responsibility, one less voice carrying across the vast sea of my loss. We'd had nothing left for each other, nothing at all. I'd needed to know what had happened to my son and who had done it and why, and bring whoever it was to justice; I'd needed to run from my guilt and my failure and the void created inside me when I lost my son. Hell, at that point, I was drowning in my own sense of helplessness and looking for the solid ground I thought answers would give me.

And my wife? I don't really know what Barbara needed, but I sure as hell didn't have it to give her. That's what a failed relationship boils down to, I guess: needs not met.

There were needs now that could never be met by either of us.

_Daddy! Daddy! Come find me!_

After Barbara left, not much changed. I continued to spend my nights drifting around the house, locked in memories and regrets. I made turning down invitations from well-meaning friends an art. I didn't go out, let the machine answer the phone, didn't talk to anyone once I left work. I sat in the darkness for hours, with no desire to do anything, see anyone, or be anywhere. Staying home and drinking to dull my pain was all I was capable of, all I wanted to do.

It sure beat the hell outta trying to pretend I was gettin' over anything.

One night, though, I reached the point where I came so close to taking that final lung full of water that it scared me. I stood up, put my gun back in its lock box, threw on my jacket, and walked out the door. My life was a mess: dead son, wife gone, a career that was no longer meant anything to me. Nothing in my life was makin' sense anymore. I was floundering, and couldn't get hold of anything that felt solid, reliable. It scared the hell out of me. I wasn't finding what I needed in booze, wasn't finding it in the silence of my empty home, and I sure as hell didn't want to be lookin' for it in the muzzle of my revolver. Whatever I needed, whatever I was missing, had to be somewhere else.

It wasn't until I rang Monica Reyes' doorbell that I realised where my need had taken me.

I'd never been to her place before. We weren't anywhere near the 'drop over when you're in the neighbourhood' stage. Sure, once she'd finished up with the NYPD we kept in occasional touch - I'd called for her thoughts on a case that came up - but we'd never met for a beer, never had more than a quick, 'How ya doin'?" phone conversation. I guess we were kinda like ships that passed in the night and kept radio contact; it was reassuring, for reasons I didn't stop to think about, to know that she was out there and reachable, but I never figured on more than that. I definitely didn't expect to end up at her apartment unannounced.

When she opened the door, her reaction to seeing me made it clear she'd had it figured pretty much the same.

She was talking as she swung the door open: "What do you need this ti-" She stopped abruptly when she saw me. There was no mistaking her surprise, and she sure as shootin' wouldn't have answered the door wearing what she was wearing if she'd known I was standing on the other side of it.

"John..." Her dark eyes looked past me, down the hall. "I thought you were Brenda..." Her gaze turning back to me, she continued, "She's been working on a new contract and keeps running out of coffee and cigarettes. I swear she thinks I'm the grocery store-" She stopped, no doubt realising that she was babbling and said, "This is such a suprise! Come in! Is everything okay?" When I didn't answer right away, she looked down at herself and coloured. One hand went up to cover the open neck of her night shirt. The other gestured as she said, "The living room's through there. Why don't you go make yourself at home? Throw your jacket on the coat rack here. I'll put something on, and be back in a minute."

_What are you doing, Daddy?_

I felt like a damned fool, but whatever had drawn me there held me tightly in place. Looking back, I know there was nowhere else I could have gone. She had shared the most intense, soul destroying time of my life with me. She'd shared in my search, had shared the disappointment of having lead after lead go nowhere, and stood beside Luke's body with me when that search was ended. She'd respected my pain and allowed me my space. Even more important, she hadn't given up, not ever, on finding the guy who did it.

She hadn't run away.

And when she looked at me, her eyes told me she was not a stranger to the hell I was living in. Somehow, she understood.

She turned and I watched her walk to a door across from where she'd said the living room was. I hadn't been drinking so much that I didn't notice she looked damned good in the deeply v-necked satin pajama top she wore. She's tall and slender and the view from behind was good - the satin hem of the leopard-print top barely covered her rear end, and showed a good view of her legs.

I remember reining in my train of thought: I'd worked with her and might work with her again. I never mix business with pleasure; never have, never will.

She returned dressed in a black sweatshirt and jeans. "Can I offer you anything?" she asked, pushing the long sleeves of her shirt up over her elbows. "I was gonna make some decaf, and there's orange juice in the fridge."

"Orange juice'd be great," I answered, wishing she'd offered something a little stronger to go with it.

Still not asking me what the hell I was doing there, she went into the kitchen. I heard the fridge door open and watched as she came back into view and took two tall glasses out of the cupboard. After pouring bottled sunshine into them, she set the container on the counter and returned.

"Here you go," she said, holding out a glass. "I figured I might as well join you. Decaf always tastes horrible, anyway. I don't know why I buy it."

I nodded, glad for her easy acceptance of my arrival. Inclining my head towards the kitchen, where I could see part of a table covered in files, I asked, "You were workin'?"

She shook her head. Curling one leg beneath her, she made herself comfortable on the sofa opposite me. "Left off hours ago," she said. "I took my evening jog, had a shower and was about to settle down with a book."

"I'm sorry. I shouldn'ta come so late." It also crossed my mind she shouldn't have been jogging alone at night, but I didn't say so.

That's where most people would have asked what I was doing there. Monica just took a sip of her drink and looked at me calmly. I remember having an eerie feeling that though she hadn't expected me that particular night, she'd known I'd come and was merely doing the polite thing and pretending she hadn't.

I glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall, wondering how much I was inconveniencing her. Catching me, she scolded, "Don't worry about the time! You just got here and it's not that late. Tomorrow's Saturday. You can sleep in."

_Daddy! Daddy! It's time to wake up! Wake up!_

I stifled a stab of pain at the memory.

Her eyes flickered. "I love sleeping in late," she said quickly, drawing my attention back. "The threat of 'no work, no job: no job, no pay" is the only thing that gets me out of bed before 11:00!"

I think it was the first personal observation about herself that she'd made since we'd met. It's the first one I remember, anyway. It was something I wouldn't have guessed - though, as I recall, even back then, she seemed to rely more heavily on her morning coffee than most.

She sat there, looking at me patiently, as though we had all the time in the world.

"Barbara left me."

The words stumbled out from between my lips and into the room before I could stop them. I shut my mouth tight, shocked I'd said them, shocked at the sound of them. The sorry state of my personal life was nothing she needed to know or was likely to be interested in. Barbara had left weeks ago - why bring it up now? And with a relative stranger? Not even my partner knew Barbara wasn't coming back. Why would I blurt out my failure to a woman I barely knew?

_Daddy? Where's Mommy?_

She settled back against the sofa cushions and regarded me with understanding eyes. "You've both been through a lot. Maybe she needs the space to heal. Maybe you both do."

Her words were spoken calmly and I wanted to think she knew what she was talking about, though God knew how she could have: she was pretty young. Still, who knew what sort of experiences she'd had? I didn't really know that much about her. There'd been rumours in the locker room about her hanging pretty heavy with another up-and-coming agent already making his mark in the FBI's New York office. She had never mentioned him, though, at least not to me. Our personal lives had never figured much into our conversations.

So why the hell was I sitting in her apartment, drinking her orange juice, and moaning about my wife's departure?

_What is it, Daddy? I can't see!_

She spoke, startling me from my thoughts. "You're not very happy at work anymore, are you. Have you ever considered joining the FBI?"

The question threw me. For one thing, it meant she knew something more about me than I'd told her. For another, I didn't really see what it had to do with anything. Still, after a few more questions, I found myself telling my life history. Whenever I thought I'd said all there was to say, she'd throw in some comment that launched me off again.

She was as comfortable to talk with as she had been to work with. And she had a knack for understanding what I meant even when I wasn't too clear on it myself. A couple hours flew by.

We finished the carton of orange juice.

What really surprised me was that I found all the talking easy going. I left her place that night more settled than I had been since Luke's disappearance. I was even thinking about the future.

Don't get me wrong: my life wasn't fixed by any means. But, for the first time, I felt as though maybe, just maybe, shore was somewhere just out of sight, and if I just hung on, things might be okay.

_I know a secret you don't, Daddy! I know a secret!_

We kept in touch more regularly after that because she wouldn't let me get away with procrastinating about applying to the FBI. Once Monica's got an idea in her head, she just keeps at you until she gets her way. I didn't mind much - the process of applying was a welcome distraction.

A few weeks after my visit to her apartment, Monica told me she'd requested a transfer to the FBI's New Orleans office. She was unusually quiet about her reasons for wanting it. Since it's the hotbed for all sorts of weird stuff, I figured she'd be happy as a tick on a hound there.

When the day came for her to fly down for the last time, I ended up driving her to the airport. Hell, she'd been planning on taking a taxi, and that just didn't seem right. God knows where the boyfriend was - we still hadn't got that personal. She never mentioned him and I never asked. Anyways, I offered, and she accepted. Shaking her hand goodbye, I thanked her for everything, and meant it. The investigation on Luke's death had gone nowhere and my divorce was in the works, but my head was above water and whether she realised it or not, she'd played a big part in keeping it there.

She told me she hoped everything went well with my application, reminded me that I had her email addy, and with a certainty I'd come to accept if not understand, said she looked forward to working with me again.

She looked as though she wanted to say more, too, but closed her lips firmly. I looked down at our still clasped hands and felt a feeling of vertigo, of being swept toward something. Resisting the urge to bring her closer to me, I let her go, my hand tingling from its contact with hers.

_Daddy, I want to go, too!_

I walked away wondering what she'd almost said. And how long it'd be before we met up again.

In a weird way, I missed her already.

Chapter 3

Five years passed. I left the NYPD and joined the FBI. The FBI became my life raft. I was still adrift in many ways, I suppose, but at least I was afloat. Once in a while, I heard Monica's name mentioned. Her position on the special task force investigating ritual abuse took her all over the country. We had lunch a couple of times when she was in the same city as me.

With no distractions to divert me, my career took off fast. Being alone helped. It meant I had no one expecting anything of me, no one waiting, no one wanting something I couldn't give. Being alone was exactly what I needed and what I wanted.

A short time with Scully and the X-Files, though, and I decided there were different kinds of alone.

I got pretty tired of being made to feel I should be somewhere else, doing something else, and leaving Agent Scully to wallow in self pity and conspiracy mumbo jumbo. I felt bad for her and wanted to help, but hit a brick wall of resistance when I tried to. It was like there was a big sign, "Outsiders Not Welcome", on the office door. I'd never hit up against anything like it before, and the more I felt pushed aside, the more I fought back to be let in. I could see Scully needed a confidant, someone she trusted. That she didn't trust me, her partner, just didn't make sense. Hell, it hurt. I'm a reliable guy, and this woman wouldn't give me a chance.

And then there was Mulder. Even absent, he somehow make me feel responsible for his skittish, erratic, egocentric partner. And damn my overprotective hide for thinking I should be. I tried. I tried my best. It didn't matter what I did, what I said, or what I contributed to a case, though, Dana Scully still looked at me like I was some sort of impediment. It got real depressing real quick.

Then I thought of Monica. I felt my sprits rise as soon as I decided to ask for her help. I knew her interests, knew that this would be right up her alley. And yeah, maybe I liked the idea of having someone around who didn't make me feel as though I was a constant irritation.

And maybe I also remembered how good she'd been to have around during a difficult time and figured she could be the same for Dana.

I remember my face breaking into an unaccustomed smile as I walked beside Scully, trying to convince her Monica would be good for the case. It reminded me of just how long it had been since I'd felt positive about anything.

_Daddy, I wanna go play. Please?_

When Monica made a bad first impression by looking nervous, smiling too much, and stomping out a cigarette while claiming she was trying to quit, I figured it was all over. Scully got remote and condescending, and Monica got more nervous. It was awful. She quickly redeemed herself, though. Monica has a way of doing that: if she's made a bad first start, she just waltzes in a second time, says four sentences and has everyone convinced she walks on air. With her, the theory about first impressions just doesn't hold water.

I'd like to know what she said to get herself in Scully's good books, though.

I do know what she said to me, and it was obvious she wasn't worried about being in my good books at all. I've learned to hate it when she comes out with her insights. The minute she starts looking at me with those big, all-knowing and understanding eyes, I know I gotta start preparing myself for something I'm not gonna like. She's often right, but I still hate it. She makes it sound like it's a knowing thing, instead of the lucky guess it is.

Back then, I wasn't used to it and she caught me by surprise. For someone who hadn't been around many hours, she'd formed some pretty strong opinions. She labelled my situation with Scully with more emotional overtones than I'da liked, but I couldn't argue much with what she said. Once again, she made me feel as though she had an uncanny grasp on things. It was reassuring to have someone who could read me so well and be honest enough with me to say what had to be said.

It made me damned uncomfortable, too.

For some reason, it was hard to hear how worried I was about Scully. Maybe it was because I didn't really know why I was so worried about her. I'm sure there's a psych guy out there somewhere who would consider her Mulder-less state, the son she carried and the son I had lost, and draw all sorts of conclusions. All I knew was that I wanted Monica to make the woman see sense, to come in and prove to her that I could make a contribution of some sort - or that at least she should give me the benefit of the doubt once in a while. It wasn't my fault I couldn't believe in all the stuff she threw around as fact. It wasn't fact. Any fool could see that it wasn't fact.

Except Agent Scully.

And Fox Mulder, wherever the sonofabitch might have been at the time.

And yes, once Monica got involved, Monica - though to give her her due, she always explored rational avenues before sliding into mumbo jumbo. Usually. I appreciated her for that. Gave me a sort of breather before I had to plunge into their fantasy world and blow it all to hell. There were times I felt like I was a grownup telling little kids there was no Santa.

Worse, I had to live with the frustration of telling kids there was no Santa and having them think I was the one who was nuts.

Monica ended up staying on with the X-Files. It was only a partial surprise that she was willing: she has that weird background of hers and her talent for 'feeling' things... and besides, that's what happens down here - you get sucked in for one case and the place sorta envelopes you.

And yeah, I gotta say the truth: I wanted her there.

_Again, Daddy! This is fun!_

I dreaded going into work a little less. It was good to have someone around who trusted me - and someone who didn't get her nose out of joint when I disagreed with her. With Scully on maternity leave, Monica and I were pretty much on our own. Some strange cases were sent our way, I'll admit that, but for the most part they were explained to my satisfaction.

It wasn't all easy sailing, of course. Monica's leaps of logic irritated the shit out of me sometimes, and I spent a lot of time trying to keep her feet on the ground. There were cases she followed and cases she led, and the ones she led I began to dread, because she always ended up using that special sense she has that sees what others can't and that makes connections that sane, logical people never would.

She always seemed to be right when that happened. It didn't matter how hard I rammed the facts down her throat, didn't matter how obstinate and rational I was. If she 'felt' something, that 'something' would be the critical point of the whole case, the turning point upon which everything pivoted.

It wasn't fair. It wasn't logical. It didn't follow facts in a sequential order, but that didn't seem to matter.

There were times I honestly felt reluctant to ask her what she thought. I'd know damn well I was going to hear something I didn't want to hear - something involving that spooky extra sense of hers that made no sense to me.

It bugged me even more that she seemed to think that I had some sort of weird ability to sense things, too. "John," she told me once, "in some dark corner of yourself, you sense the same things I do. It's there in you, or you wouldn't have seen what you saw-" She stopped, knowing I still disliked references to my son's death. Eyes dropping from mine, she regrouped and finished, "It's nothing to be afraid of."

My son, turned to burned, sooty flesh.

_I don't like this, Daddy. I'm scared..._

I refused to answer her. There was plenty to be afraid of.

She reached over and touched my hand. I felt a shock, a sense of like meeting like, of awareness expanded. Her brown eyes held mine and I felt warmth grow within me. I felt- I don't know what I felt, but it made me uncomfortable. I moved my hand away. She looked at me with disappointment, but didn't say anything more.

Yet, regardless of her idiosyncracies, in spite of my misgivings about the spookier aspects of her personality, it felt right to have her at my back. She grounded me, kept me from floundering so much, both professionally and personally. I could trust her. Who else would have been brazen enough to accuse Mulder, of all people, of closing his eyes to possibilities?! Who else would have insisted that if I was going to die, I was going to die standing up? Who else would let me remain the same, not ask questions that got too close to the pain, let me go my own way? Who else would always be there in the background, keeping an eye on things?

Only Monica.

Until I made her really, really mad.

I'm not certain how it started. The argument, I mean. We were just sitting around the office discussing a case. I was making it clear I didn't believe in any of her nonsense. The X-Files was the right department for strange stuff, sure, but I'm an ex-Marine and an ex-cop - I fight what I can see, what I can take down with a sidearm. Her coming at me with ideas of unseen powers of evil just didn't wash, and I let her know it. Hell, I was tired, and didn't feel like wrapping my mind around mumbo jumbo.

I musta chosen my words wrong or something, because she flipped. Never saw her like that before. Hope to never see her like it again. She accused me of ignoring my own senses; accused me of hindering the case because I refused to see what was as plain as the nose on my face. In a voice maybe a little louder than normal, I said a few choice things back, figuring, I guess, that volume might make her see sense.

It didn't.

The conversation got louder still, and more personal. By the time it was over, I was standing alone, the window panes of the office still reverberating from the door slamming as she left.

_Daddy, what happened?_

I didn't see her again that day.

Or hear from her the next.

When I called her place, her machine answered. When I phoned her cell phone I was told to leave a message. When I contacted Skinner, he gave me the runaround, saying he wasn't at liberty to say where she was. I knew that meant Mr. Assistant Director Brad Follmer had told him to keep his mouth shut. The A.D., I'd discovered, was the ambitious ex-boyfriend that she'd left in New York years ago and never spoke about. Sometimes the world is just a little too small, y'know?

I phoned Scully. She hadn't heard from Monica in a while. No, she had no idea where she might have gone. Dana then asked if anything had been bothering Monica lately. Yeah, my attitude, but I didn't say so. Hanging up, I pondered my next move. We had cases to work on, she was AWOL as far as I was concerned, and no one seemed to mind except me.

Needing to know where the hell she was and what she thought she was doing, I used the resources at my disposal and discovered she'd taken a flight to New Orleans. It was pretty clear why: the case we'd started our argument over had just moved there.

Chapter 4

So, here I sit in a cheap motel room, trying to figure out how I'm going to approach Monica, say I'm sorry, and ask if please may we go back to working on this case together?

It's the logical thing to do, dammit, and she'd better let me.

My cell phone rings, and I answer it.

"John."

It's her.

Of course it's her. Who else would it be? Who else would know I was here without being told? She can't even let me call so she can pretend surprise at my arrival.

My heart beats a little faster. I hate it when I feel nervous for no good reason.

"Monica."

I figure the less I say at first, the better. I'm not used to pussy-footing around people, and it doesn't sit right to have to now. I did it with Agent Scully, and I swore then I'd never do it again. Dammit, she was wrong to get so riled up over a simple conversation, and totally out of line to disappear the way she did.

I wait for her to make the first move.

"You'll need to change motels. I'm at the Calypso, on Ninth Street. It's more comfortable, and it makes more sense for us to be in the same place."

I grit my teeth. "Perhaps if you'd told me where you were going and what you were doing, I'da known where to make reservations."

"You found out where I went; I figured you'd manage to find where I was staying, too," she retorts logically.

She's right. I know where she's staying. Honest to the bone, I admit, "I wasn't sure it was safe to get that close." There's a pause. I think it means I've scored a point 'til she says, "It may not be, but it makes more sense for you to be here. Call it a necessary risk."

I try to find a hint of humour in her tone. Uncertain I find it, I try to make amends: "Monica, look, I'm sorry. I was irritable and got out of hand with some of the stuff I said."

"Save it for when you get here. I'd rather you apologise in person." The line goes dead. I've been dismissed.

She is really, really ticked.

_Wait a minute, Daddy._

Chapter 5

The hotel she's chosen has air conditioning that doesn't work any better than anywhere else in the city, but it's in a central part of town and there are floor to ceiling windows that slide open to allow in whatever small, tired breeze might come gasping by.

I open the door after her 'Come in' and figure I might as well get everything over with right at the start. She's sitting on one end of a sofa, files strewn all around her. When she looks up at me, I say, "Monica, like I said, I'm sorry. Why the hell did you go runnin' off like that, without letting anyone know where you were goin'?"

She lifts an eyebrow. "'Anyone', meaning you, John? Brad knew where I went. What would you have said at the time if I'd told you I had booked flights here? You'd have continued right on over the deep edge. I knew until you settled down and was ready to come here because you wanted to, I'd get a lot more accomplished here alone."

She pauses a beat, then adds, "And you're going to have to work on your apologies. That was pitiful."

She's right. The fleeting thought crosses my mind that she looks very good. There's relief in seeing her safe and ready for a fight. She's not a woman who backs down from what she believes - no matter how crazy what she believes is. I've tried to force her with words and will to admit her flights of fancy are just that. It's never worked. I feel uncomfortable when I think of all the times she's simply held my eyes with hers and refused to back down.

In the blink of an eye I realise something: I've been trying to browbeat her into a conformity of thought she refuses to submit to. That's what I need to apologise to her for, and that's what I can't quite bring myself to do yet. I'm not comfortable with what she does and how she does it. I can't apologise for that. But I don't want to work with anyone else, and, like it or not, it always comes back to that. For the first time in a long time, there's something that really matters. Whatever the connection is between us, it's become important to me.

I sit down on the other end of the sofa. It's warm in here. It's warm everywhere in New Orleans this time of year. The humidity is off the charts, and it's not fit to do anything more strenuous than shallow breathing. Monica's wearing a sleeveless tank top and a pair of cutoffs. She looks younger dressed this way, and I suddenly feel old and over dressed. Tugging at my collar, I shift uncomfortably, more conscious of her physically than I like to admit.

"He's going to strike again. My guess is, in another few days."

Her words don't make sense to me at first, then my brain catches up and I nod. No point in asking her why she thinks this, not if I want to maintain our truce. If she's talkin' about the case, it means she's going to let bygones be bygones.

I stand up and shrug off my jacket. Rolling up my sleeves, I ask her, "Where do you want me to start?"

She smiles and something clicks into place. I feel myself settle. I'm not floundering anymore, I don't feel adrift anymore. My pain is still a part of me, but it's no longer all of me.

She moves to the table and picks up a folder.

I smile. Somehow over the past months I've reached the point where I'm at home in her presence. It doesn't matter that we argue, doesn't matter that we don't always see eye-to-eye. What matters is that this partnership is right for us. The painful, lonely road I've travelled has led to here, and I like it. This works. There are things about it that scare the shit outta me sometimes, but I'll be damned if I'm not gonna hang on. I don't know where it is we're headin', but I figure I'll recognise it when we get there.

I hear my son's laughter and something eases inside me.

It's possible to feel pain so deep it guts your soul, and leaves you floundering in its wake.

It's possible, in time, to find solid ground after that.

There may even be hope of regaining one's soul.

Taking the file folder she holds out to me, I sit down and begin to read.

End  
Solid Ground


End file.
